Is this normal at the drive thru?

[JLG]

There is a Jack in the Box that I go to at least once a week. The service is good but every time a certain guy works the drive thru window it gets weird. Well to me anyway.

EVERY SINGLE TIME I get to the window to pay he asks me to pull around to the front for my food. OK the first time he did this it was not weird to me because it has happened at other drive thrus. Maybe whatever I ordered was not ready and instead of having a back up of cars they ask you to pull to the front to wait. I get that. But this guy does it every time.

A couple of nights ago I went to this Jack in the box to get some dinner. I pay and my drinks are handed to me then I hear. "Can you do me a favor and pull around up front to wait for your food." I look up and sure enough it is this same guy. When I get to the front of the store I notice the car that was in front of me was parked waiting too. And so was the car behind me and the mini van behind them. Literally 30 seconds later a worker comes out and goes to the car next to me and asks them what they ordered. Nope not yours, she comes to my car and asks what I ordered, yup this is your order. I started my car to leave and all the other cars were getting their food as well and leaving.

Is this a sighting or is this normal practice at the drive thru?

[MaggieTheCat]

That's happened to me on occasion when whatever I ordered is being cooked fresh and will take a little while (usually chicken) or if I have a particularly large order. Not every time, though. Well, it does happen fairly often at Culver's, but they at least give you little numbers to put on your window or dashboard so the person running your food out doesn't have to stop and ask everyone what their order was. Maybe if you go late at night, it's because they have a smaller crew working (like only one person cashiering/doing drivethru, and one person cooking) so even small orders take a little longer?

[IvorTangrean]

I can't speak for Jack in the Box but around here the A&W's all time how long a car sits on the sensor outside the window. Maybe he is just trying to make his numbers look good by getting people off the sensor fast?

[Green_Fairy]

ours are timed as well...but when we reach a certain time, we work faster, not use some crappy tactic to make the numbers go down. that's just messed. if you're really concerned, try talking to a manager?

[JLG]

I was thinking maybe he wants his time to look faster. I did e-mail them and they asked me for more info and said they would look into it.

[ReadyToRetire]

That happened to me quite often at a Burger King I frequent. And I would usually go about midnight - 1am. Even if I was the only one there, they would ask me to pull around front. Didn't know why they did that.

A couple days ago I went to Wendy's and they asked me to pull around.
I can't remember her exact words, but what I got from the DT girl's explanation was having to do with the customer times at the window.

[Sightings Reporter]

That happened to me quite often at a Burger King I frequent. And I would usually go about midnight - 1am. Even if I was the only one there, they would ask me to pull around front. Didn't know why they did that.

A few weeks ago I went to BK and was the only person in line. I was asked to pull forward for one of my sandwiches. I thought it was weird and wondered about it. It happened again, the same location, about a week later. No explanation and it wasn't a strange food order. (Chx Tendercrisp first time and a fish sandwich the second time).

[Erin]

We used to "park" cars all the time when I worked for McDonald's. We could only "park" up to three at a time.. We'd been using that as a way to speed up our drive thru since I first got hired there in '89 (I quit McD's in late 1996).

I can also remember going to other McD's with my mom when I was little and they'd park us whenever I special ordered the cheeseburger in my Happy Meal. So, it's at least been a common practice for McD's for up to 30 something years. (I'm almost 41 now)

It kind of helped when you have a couple of big orders in a row and then a bunch of small orders behind them. Park the big orders that might take more time to make (like if they wanted their three 20 piece chicken nuggets cooked fresh or something) Made it easier to get rid of the 5 cars behind them that only ordered a drink and a cheeseburger or small easy to assemble orders.

[Tuxian]

Having worked for JitB in the past, I can say this about their parking policy, at least as far as it's being enforced with you.

You should not be parked.

Parking is a last-ditch effort on the part of the drive-thru staff to attempt to get smaller orders out while they work on a large order. Or at least that's the theory. Also, when being asked to park, you should be given a reason WHY. It can be as simple as "We're out of fresh fries, we're cooking you some now, please pull ahead and wait." to "It's going to take a few minutes to assemble everything, and the lady behind you only has a drink/single item, would you mind pulling forwards?" Just some indication to let you know that you're not just being treated like someone who can be ignored since you're not at the window anymore.

But a flat request to park every time, and parking multiple cars, is a BIG no-no. One car may be parked, two if urgently needed, no more. There should also be a designated area for you to wait, usually a thick line of paint on the pavement somewhere or some such.

As a general safety rule, also... Cars should NEVER be parked after the sun has gone down, for both employee and customer safety. If I'm ever in a drive-thru and am asked to park after nightfall, I kindly refuse, since I don't think it is safe for them to leave the restaurant to deliver orders when it is dark. May make me a bit of an SC to people looking to cut down their order timers, but you know, I think that the safety of the workers and myself is more important than a number on a clock. And heaven forbid something is WRONG with your order (you do check the bag before you leave the drive-thru, right?) it makes it a hell of a lot harder to get it fixed if, say, the dining room is closed and the only way to get their attention is to get out of your car, or go back through drive-thru. Uh-uh, no sir. Not gonna happen again. I've had it happen too often to me.

[EricKei]

I seem to recall a post on here about golden arches or a similar place where the DT people were told that the expected time, from *start* of placing the order to payment to handing them the bag, was supposed to be something like sixty seconds Even assuming that the customer moves FAST and doesn't cause their own delays, I'm not sure that's even physically possible, let alone safe, even if they're the only person in line.

edit: (I'm probably off on the time, but it was still something impractical)

[Tuxian]

I seem to recall a post on here about golden arches or a similar place where the DT people were told that the expected time, from *start* of placing the order to payment to handing them the bag, was supposed to be something like sixty seconds Even assuming that the customer moves FAST and doesn't cause their own delays, I'm not sure that's even physically possible, let alone safe, even if they're the only person in line.

At my JitB, we were expected to keep drive-thru times under 3 minutes from the moment they arrive at the speaker to place their order. Which, since I worked graveyard, was annoying to me, since the customers would take forever to order, and when they wanted fries, natural cut fries took 3:05 to cook, curly took 2:45. No way were they getting out in under 3 min, especially when (as they almost always would) they wanted tacos...

[Andara Bledin]

I, as the customer, have absolutely zero problems doing things to "fool" the timer since I, personally, think that metrics like that are crap.

There's a guy at my favored Jack in the Pulpit that will ask me to back up and pull forward again. But they only really ask me to pull to the park spot if I've got an item type that takes a bit to cook.

^-.-^